No, I tell myself.

No matter what, we meet in Dallas. That’s the plan. It’s our best chance to find each other.

I can only hope the other teams have all turned south toward Texas. Our mission timeline was cut grievously short, but every hour, Roth gains more power to his side. It will soon become impossible to steal through state borders and execute our plan.

But we have to. We have to get to Dallas before Roth unites the country under his Lone Star.

Why did you do this to us, Ava? Was there really no other way? You’ve ruined our surprise attack, and now we’re on the defensive. Like always.

It’s overwhelming, knowing my sister is so near and might be in danger and I just have to let her go.

But my mission is too important to abandon. Theo is too important.

The people have to know.

“I’ll see you soon, Ava,” I say aloud. It feels better to voice it. More real, like a renewed promise.

“We had the same idea,” Theo says, startling me. “Finding some fresh air, I mean.”

I didn’t hear him approach. I need to be more alert.

“Stay inside,” I tell Theo. It comes out like a command. “Your grandfather knows a Goodwin is in the area. Guards and Scent Hunters will be everywhere.”

Maybe even his Texas State Guard.

“You’re considered a Glut here. You’ll be arrested on the spot.”

“Oh. Right,” Theo says. He backs closer to the door.

Tossing him my scent-eliminating spray, I throw up my hood and set off to find some privacy.

“Welcome to America.”

OWEN

“Are we there yet?” I ask Blaise, my designated navigator. He has a ginormous paper map stretched out in front of him, the roads and towns of Colorado taking up half the car’s windshield.

“No!” Blaise snaps. He’s really on edge. “You asked me three minutes ago, and the answer is still no! You would fully know it if we crossed the border.”

“Let’s hope that’s not true,” Malik says from the back seat. “We could just cruise on through. I mean, this isn’t even a real road. Why would the Guard waste resources way out here?”

“Because way out here is where you find people who don’t want to be found,” I say.

Let’s hope I’m wrong. Whatever Blaise says—or doesn’t say—we’re close to Oklahoma. We have to be. The line of cars is speeding up.

On our dash south to the Colorado border, we’ve accumulated ten more vehicles, and I don’t even know how many people. We form one long, single-file line, Rayla driving at the head, me at the tail. The Common Cavalry. It does have a nice zing to it.

Our operation’s changed: It’s Dallas or bust.

It’s Operation Save the Rebellion.

Back at the safe house, Rayla asked who would follow her into Texas and protect the Common. Every one of us shouted, I will!

A top-secret mission is about to go down. We don’t know the details yet, but I bet it involves Roth and the twins.

Yes, I could have stayed behind at the house and let others do the dirty work. But Rayla said the mission will change the country’s future and every single American’s life. Bullshit if I don’t want a part in that. Owen Hart: a Cog in a broken machine no more.

Hey, I’m no Cadwell or Goodwin, but a Hart has to start somewhere.

I was lost for words—and that’s saying something—when I watched the footage of Ava in Washington State. I was jealous—jealous of her renegade audacity, jealous of the spindly kid on her arm who got to be by her side while she told the nation enough is enough. I finally broke down and asked Rayla the guy’s name. Pawel.

I’ll give it to him: the guy looked good in a tux. I’ve never even worn one of those before. Whatever. Bet Pawel doesn’t have a car like I do. Sure, I didn’t pay for the luxury vehicle, but still.

Xavier flashes his brake lights in the car ahead of us. It’s the signal to go dark. Whoops. Focus, man. I stab a button next to the steering wheel and cut my headlights.

“The border line is coming up,” Blaise informs the car, voice muffled behind his bandana.

“You think?” I say.

It’s a full moon and a clear night. The Guard can still see us if they’re looking.

“Uh, guys, what’s that?” Malik says, pointing to a speck in the dark sky. “It’s coming at us crazy fast.”

No need to take my eyes off the road to look; the car will look for me while I drive. “Duke, activate Identification Mode. Identify object approaching the vehicle’s northwest, two hundred feet up.”

Rayla isn’t here to supervise—she wouldn’t approve of us “awakening” the car to a few of its insanely awesome capabilities—but together Blaise and I were able to program Duke to be untrackable. She’d approve of team building, right?

Beside me Blaise drops the map into his lap. “I don’t need a car to tell me that we’re in trouble,” he says in a tone I don’t care for.

“What do you mean, man?” I press, but he’s turned mute, thoroughly spooked.

“Unable to identify object,” Duke says in the low, gruff voice I programmed for him, styled after the classic John Wayne character. More than appropriate, I must say, given that we’re riding through the Wild West just like he did in the old-time movies. Except we have cars, not horses. And our bad guys have Scream Guns.

“What the hell?” I say, frustrated. A Kismet car that’s passed inspection should never fail an identification command.

What’s worse, when I whip my head to the passenger’s seat, I find Blaise in full-on freak-out mode. Well, that’s an emotional response I’ve never seen from him before. Not good.

“Blaise, what is it?” I find myself shouting, rattled by the Prince of Flames losing his nerve.

“That’s a Killer Drone!”

“What?!”

One of the vehicles in the front shines a spotlight that’s attached to their roof on the flying object, now only fifty feet away.

Yep. It’s a drone all right. A fully autonomous weapon that hunts down targets and kills them without any human supervision required. They’re supposed to be illegal, but it’s crystal damn clear that rules don’t apply to Roth.

Using its six propeller motors to deftly position itself above the head of our Cavalry, it opens fire.

“Fuuuuuuuck!” Blaise and Malik scream at the same time.

Bullets light up the night sky like firecrackers. The autonomous gun targets all forty-plus cars in one fell swoop—its three-axis gimbal stabilizer making sure the killer robot’s aim is dead accurate despite the fact that Rayla has led the Cavalry into driving a zigzag pattern. I weave right then left, following the car captained by Xavier in front of me.

Bam, bam, bam! A round of gunfire blasts the roof of our car. “Don’t worry!” I shout at my screaming passengers. “Duke’s bulletproof!”

Duke is one of Kismet’s elite models that hasn’t hit the market yet. Fully armored, made for extremely wealthy and robbery-prone business CEOs who can afford its four-hundred-thousand-dollar price tag. It looks like an average luxury vehicle, but it’s really a mobile fortress. Loaded with bullet-resistant tinted glass windows and a six-piece, high-strength steel body, fastened with heavy-duty run-flat tires, the car was designed to withstand the high-velocity incendiary bullets that we’re being attacked with right now. Hell, Duke could survive a thirty-three-pound TNT explosion. We’ve got this.